BloodMoon
Beloved Grand Eagle
There's a quotation often attributed to Viktor Frankl, the psychologist and Holocaust survivor:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
That’s basically what Steven Oats talks about in his book How to Rewire Your Brain Without Willpower. He suggests that a simple way to stretch that pause in the moment is to stop and lengthen the out-breath. Making the exhale longer than the inhale can encourage the body’s relaxation response and take some of the heat out of the reaction before we decide how to respond to the stimulus.
We don't always remember to catch that pause and lengthen it (I know I don't), but we can take a longer exhale—or two or three or more—whenever we realise we're in a situation that isn't agreeing with us.
In the context of TMS, I think it helps to remember that frustration usually has some anger (or its “sister”, irritation) riding along with it. Just recognising and accepting the anger, rather than pushing it away, can help signal to the brain that it isn't actually dangerous. And feeling the anger doesn't mean we have to act on it to solve the cause of it—the pause gives us the choice.
And I don't think this means that we should simply “let things go” when something genuinely matters to us. Wanting justice, fairness or resolution is not the problem. We can recognise that something is unfair, feel the anger that comes with that, and still choose how we want to respond. We might decide to speak up, set a boundary, challenge what happened or take some other action. But we can't act on every injustice we encounter; trying to correct or respond to everything that feels unfair is exhausting and painful in itself. Part of the choice the pause gives us is deciding which things genuinely need our response and which things we can acknowledge, feel the anger about, and then let pass. The important thing is that the anger doesn't have to make the decision for us. We can act because something matters to us, rather than because we're caught up in the automatic reaction to it.
Done consistently, this can help the brain gradually learn that it doesn't need to distract us (with pain and/or other symptoms) from recognising and feeling our anger. It can learn that we can feel it without acting on it in a way that threatens our survival, and that many of the injustices themselves, while genuinely unfair and upsetting, aren't usually actually dangerous to us either.
